Zirakpurਜ਼ੀਰਕਪੁਰ

History

Zirakpur was, for most of its history, a small town of Dera Bassi tehsil — a highway halt in the Shivalik foothills where the roads from Ambala, Patiala and Kalka met, and where travellers stopped for the night before the climb to Shimla. Its modern story begins with Chandigarh: as the planned capital grew, the land just outside its southern boundary became the natural place for the housing, warehouses and highway commerce the capital itself could not hold. From the 1970s onward Zirakpur grew as Chandigarh's gateway — and then as its overflow.

The twenty-first century brought the boom: the Ambala–Chandigarh expressway, the widening of NH-5 and NH-7, and the airport road turned Zirakpur into a forest of high-rise towers almost overnight. It became a municipal council of SAS Nagar district in 2020, formalising what the skyline already showed — one of Punjab's fastest-growing cities.

Geography & people

Zirakpur stands at the junction of NH-5, NH-7 and the Ambala–Chandigarh expressway, at the foot of the Shivaliks, about 10 kilometres from Chandigarh's city centre — the first town a traveller meets coming from Delhi or Shimla, and the last going out. The 2011 census counted 95,553 residents, but the towers built since have multiplied that figure several times over. The population is mixed — Punjabi, Hindi and Haryanvi speakers, Sikh, Hindu and others — reflecting its role as a commuter city for the Tricity. Real estate, retail and highway services drive the economy, and the town's banquet halls and hotels serve the wedding and conference trade of the whole region.

Places of interest

Zirakpur's landmarks are modern: the Chhatbir Zoo (Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park) is minutes away, and Gurdwara Nabha Sahib — where Guru Tegh Bahadur's head was brought after his martyrdom in Delhi in 1675 — is the town's historic shrine. The malls, multiplexes and banquet halls of the highway strip serve the Tricity's leisure economy. The Shivalik foothills behind the town offer the nearest green escape, and the Chhatbir Zoo — one of North India's best — is a full-day destination minutes from the highway.

Notable people

Zirakpur's story is not one of famous natives but of the builders and residents who made it Punjab's boom town — the developers who raised its towers, and the commuters who fill them every morning on the airport road into Chandigarh and Mohali. Its historical figure is Guru Tegh Bahadur, whose martyrdom is commemorated at Gurdwara Nabha Sahib on its edge.